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Weddings Category

A jam-packed half day pre-wedding photo shoot at KLPAC early in the morning, before topping off with an indoor studio shoot, all within a span of 10 crazy hours. The weather in the blazing morning sun was uncomfortably hot; otherwise, it was good that it did not rain. I moved very quickly on set for the shoot at KLPAC, using only one speed light and one assistant.

It was my first time setting foot in Sibu. I was really excited, apart from the usual lingering after taste of being a not-so-welcomed immigrant from Peninsular Malaysia every time I passed Sarawak immigration with a slip that read a maximum 3 months stay. Unbelievable.

Otherwise, food was amazingly affordable and just simply over the roof in both taste and all-round satisfaction. Weather was superb. I was here to photograph my brother-in-law’s wedding with his wife from Sibu.

We flew into Sibu from KL for the actual day wedding dinner photography, spent the night and took a bum-busting 9 hour car ride back to Kuching the following morning! We didn’t have much time to rest when we arrived in Kuching. I had an early morning the following day for the Registration of Marriage (ROM) ceremony as the bride make up and prep was at the Waterfront Hotel, Kuching.

After the groom arrived at the hotel to pickup the bride, we proceeded to the groom’s house before going over to the Foo Chow Association in Kuching for the ROM shoot. This was followed by a dinner by the pool at the Waterfront Hotel. Here are just a small selection of photos from these two dinners and a ROM shoot.

A final execution of studio pre-wedding photography for 2015 held at Mudframes Pictures, which lasted over 5 hours. We started late morning and completed everything pretty much on time till late afternoon. A similar setup as that of my very own DIY pre-wedding photography for simplicity was employed.

Here are some beach pre-wedding photo shoot pictures taken at Krabi, Thailand for a client as one of my destination pre-wedding photography service. These pictures were taken over the course of two days at Centara Grand Beach Resort & Villas.

The first day upon arrival only saw us starting shoot at 4pm, just in time for the sunset views. The following day, we started early and ended just in time for lunch. For destination pre-wedding photography, it definitely takes at least one and a half day for best coverage, taking into account all the travelling that goes into it. Tiring and mentally-draining but worth every effort and determination to see this through for a perfect deliverable at the end of the day.

Looking for pre-wedding photography ideas? How would it be like imagining rediscovering your lost childhood photographs in which your stranger-then wife was present right next to you back then? It was a rather vivid, euphoric and eureka-like moment when I had the idea of putting together some pictures depicting my wife and I at a particular moment back when we were little.

I set about searching for old photographs of us and matched them according to the year they were taken. For instance, pictures taken during 1986 would see me, a 5 year-old boy being right in the frame; where I don’t belong, right next to my wife, a 2 year-old girl. It was either a case of photoshopping myself into her photographs or her, into mine.

1985: Sneaking up on me during a nap

The challenges of this attempt were many. I had to find the right expressions and body language so I could blend them effortlessly and believably into the scene. The condition and age of the photographs that have been kept for so long caused a great variety of discolouration. This plus the different lighting conditions under which the photographs were taken cause a wide range of colour cast and temperature difference.

1986: Cheeky me

1986: Me and my bread

1986: Can’t take this off from me

Hence, when merging the photographs, I had to be careful to desaturate and perform some colour balance on either one of our pictures to maintain consistency. Sometimes, it worked brilliantly while other times, it looked just too fake. Shadow fall was one of the biggest headache in mimicking. Nevertheless, I thought this never-been-done before concept as an accompaniment to our very own DIY pre-wedding photography would be something extraordinary, if not, “eerie” representation of our historical relationship sealed in time.

I scanned all the pictures on a flat-bed scanner, and up-sampled the images by gradually and methodically increasing the pixel count. I ended up with really large resolution images of an otherwise low-res straight-out-of-the-scanner reproduction of the physical photographs. They could easily go up to a 16″ x 20″ print.

1988: Fun times at the beach

1988: A stroll at the beach

1988: Here we are…

Logically, I did not photograph any of these pictures. It just goes to show how important children photographs are in documenting and reliving one’s fleeting little moments. In this digital age, I’m certain most parents will end up having a large pool of stock images of their children. They will never know when their children will end up using them creatively like in this case.

In contrast, I had actually very little material to work with. Of course, the more pictures, the better, as I had a wider range of scenes and possibilities to work on. Nevertheless, it has been a terrific and enjoyable experience putting together these little mementos with a tinge of humour in what have been one of the most interesting series on lost childhood photographs.